ighty miles....
Something very remarkable happened down yonder tonight--something
somebody ought to look into."

Gail said quickly, "How about a spaceship from another world?"

"It would have come in from outer space," said Soames. "It didn't."

"A secret weapon," said Captain Moggs firmly. "I shall report to
Washington and ask orders to investigate."

"I wouldn't," said Soames. "If you ask orders you promise to wait for
them. If you wait for orders, whatever fell will be covered by snow past
discovery by the time your orders come."

Gail looked at him interestedly, confidently.

"What will you do, then?"

"I think," said Soames, "we'll find it and then report.

"You were planning a cosey little article on Housewives of the
Antarctic; The Care and Feeding of One's Penguin Husband. Right?"

Gail grinned suddenly.

"I see. Yes."

"We take off in the 'copter," said Soames. "We start out ostensibly to
gather material for an article on Can This Penguin Marriage Be Saved.
But we'll be blown off course. We'll find ourselves quite accidentally
where the radar said there was the great-grandfather of static bursts,
with a ground-shock and a concussion-wave to boot. We may even be blown
farther, to where something dived downward for four or five miles and
vanished below the horizon."

Captain Moggs said uneasily:

"Most irregular. But it might be wise."

"Of course," said Soames. "It's always safer to report something you've
found than not find something you've reported."

"We start at sunrise," said Captain Moggs authoritatively.

* * * * *

Soames went back to the radar. As he looked at it, it picked out
something rather smaller than a marble at a height of seventy-nine miles
and followed that unthinkably ancient small wanderer of space down to
its spectacular suicide by fire at a height of thirty-four miles.

He went painstakingly over the radar. It worked perfectly. The taped
record of its observations carried the story of all that Gail and
Captain Moggs had seen when he saw it. Machinery may err, but it does
not have delusions. It would have to be subject to systematic
hallucination to have reported and recorded what this radar insisted was
the truth.

When dawn came, he went out to the helicopter's hangar. There was a
supply-plane on the runway, but the helicopter belonged at the base. He
found himself excessively conscientious in his check-over. Though he
hated to admi